Ok. I get that Jorge Mario Bergoglio has a record of being a homophobe, and a misogynist, but there seem to be a lot of allegations flying around that he collaborated with the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s.

I don't get this. In preparing this post I was trying to trace the source of this allegation through Atheism+ linking to an article in Freethoughtblogs where PZ Myers linked to a Guardian article containing the allegation yesterday. And today the Guardian article has this addendum:-

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Guardian

This article was amended on 14 March 2013. The original article, published in 2011, wrongly suggested that Argentinian journalist Horacio Verbitsky claimed that Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio connived with the Argentinian navy to hide political prisoners on an island called El Silencio during an inspection by human rights monitors. Although Verbitsky makes other allegations about Bergoglio's complicity in human rights abuses, he does not make this claim. The original article also wrongly described El Silencio as Bergoglio's "holiday home". This has been corrected.

If atheists are going to make headway against bigots we have to be reasonably cautious not to become bigoted ourselves. To turn every allegation into a statement of fact with the worst possible label attached to it strikes me as perpetuating the same propensity to nonsense that the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church is renowned for. It's like all the atheists who were busy trying to make stick the suggestion that Joseph Ratzinger was a Nazi sympathizer because of his forced participation in the Hitler Youth at the age of 14. Ridiculous.

UncaYimmy

14th March 2013 10:21 PM

So, we should follow your lead by starting threads with an allegation that's not an allegation because it has a question mark?

Exi5tentialist

14th March 2013 10:31 PM

Do what you like, Yimmy.

I'm just saying, the allegation that Bergoglio is a collaborator with the Argentinian military junta is appearing all over the atheosphere. The assertion of certainty that usually accompanies is always unjustified. Bergoglio is many things, but he was no more a collaborator with the Argentinian Junta that Karol Wojtila was a Polish Communist in 1980.

nostrum

11th October 2018 04:39 AM

did we ever resolve this?

Timewave

11th October 2018 04:41 AM

resolutions are so old fashion.
nowadays it is all about the anti-climax.:nod:

borealis

11th October 2018 05:11 AM

I don't spend a lot of time thinking about the pope, tbh.

But what happened to Exi, I wonder? Did the A+ people catch her and do her in?

nostrum

11th October 2018 05:51 AM

was exi a she?

borealis

11th October 2018 06:06 AM

Exi never revealed. I always thought s/he seemed more likely to be a woman, but I've known a few men over the years who could have sounded like Exi.

Ambiguous, like TTP.

Or even me in some circumstances. I have never tried to come off as male (c'mon, obvious old cat lady) but a surprising number of people have assumed I was a he until someone told them different.